CTU Minneapolis
by Will Sjorensen
Summary: A murder takes place on the streets, the storm of the decade approaches, and terrorists unleash an unimaginable horror on the heart of the nation. For the agents of CTU Minneapolis, it's going to be a very long day. **CHAPTER 2 IS UP**
1. 12:00 AM to 1:00 AM

_Author's Intro_

_Although this series takes place in the "24" universe, and uses the "24" time format, the vast majority of these characters are my own invention, as is the story itself._

_CTU Minneapolis takes place between the first and second seasons of the TV series. It is written in prose format, not script format. I apologize to my Midwestern readers for the geographical liberties I have taken with Minneapolis and other points in the story. I also apologize for the length of the story -- a necessity, since I have to relate 3,600 seconds' worth of events per episode. _

_I cannot promise any regularity to the adding of chapters -- they will be added as I complete them. I will only promise that the day will, eventually, come to an end._

_~WS_

* * * *

CTU MINNEAPOLIS

_The following takes place between midnight and 1:00 AM_

_on the day of the State of the Union address._

12:00:00

His name was Hassan, and he had eight minutes to live.

He drove the van, a recent acquisition of the Brotherhood, through the freeway tunnel, down the off-ramp, and into downtown. The streets were oddly quiet, even for a Sunday night. The usual night-goers must have turned in early -- still recovering from the holidays, perhaps. There certainly was cause to celebrate this year; the economy was doing unusually well, the new stadium bill had been passed, and the Vikings, against all expectations, had a good shot at the Super Bowl. Hangovers abound.

Hassan drove cautiously through the downtown streets, keeping well below the speed limit and coming to a full stop at every red light. He turned on the radio, listened briefly to a cheerful late-night newscaster talk about a possible storm front, and switched to the FM band. The local classic rock station was playing the Rolling Stones' "Angie." Had he known that it would be the last song he would ever hear, he might have listened more carefully.

He turned left onto Lyndale, drove a couple more blocks, and came to another stop at a red light. On the street a block up, he watched a young man and woman, obviously drunk off their rocker, stagger down the sidewalk, shouting incomprehensibly about something or other. A couple blocks farther up, he could see the rendezvous point.

The radio he had tossed onto the passenger's seat beeped. He picked it up, double-checked the scrambler code, and keyed it. _"I am here," _he said in Arabic.

_"Report,"_ came the response, also in Arabic, from a coarse, sandpaper-like voice.

_"I have accomplished my mission, and am nearing the rendezvous point now. I will be there in less than a minute."_

_"Well done,"_ the other voice said. _"Well done indeed. We will be there shortly. Radio silence until you return to headquarters."_

_"Understood,"_ said Hassan, and switched off the radio.

The light turned green.

Hassan smiled -- the smile of a man who could not possibly know that death was less than six minutes away -- and drove on.

12:02:17

Arthur Frost looked up from the paper in his hands. "Confidence?"

"Ninety percent or better," said Sonja Gilmour. She was a short woman in her late twenties, with short-cropped black hair, blue-tinted glasses, and a Nirvana T-shirt. Frost invariably had to make an effort not to wince at her disgruntled appearance. But because of her talents in research and intelligence, he tolerated her -- no, not just tolerated, but actively appreciated her. If there was anyone better out there, Frost would be surprised.

He laid the paper down on his desk and rubbed his temples. "Well . . . where to begin?"

"Sir, I know how it sounds . . ."

He looked up. "Since the ink on your transfer documents is still somewhat fresh, I rather doubt that you do. This is the Great White North – that's a grandiose way of saying the middle of nowhere. Minneapolis is the largest city in the state, and it is not even a tenth the size of your previous assignment. Who would want to . . . to do _this_ to us? What is it about our little section of the prairie that pisses someone off so much?"

"With respect, sir, if I didn't trust my source, do you think I would be in here at midnight on a Sunday night waiting for his transmission?"

Despite himself, Frost felt a small grin come over his angular face. "I thought you were just trying to impress me." He leaned back in his chair and sighed. "All right. We'd better move fast, just in case you're really _not_ a lunatic. I'll call Division and wake up somebody over there. Meantime, keep this quiet, but do what you can to confirm this."

Sonja nodded. "Should I call in the senior staff as well? Alex, at least, should know about this."

Frost shook his head. "That's still premature at this point. Give me ten minutes to talk to Division. We'll go from there. Deal?"

"Yes, sir."

12:03:28

Bobby Simmons was the perfect poster boy for the Minneapolis Police Department: tall, lean, handsome and genial. He seemed to have a smile for everyone, and if you had a problem, Bobby Simmons would listen to you. Ted Garfield regarded the young man while he zipped up his winter coat. Despite being the older and more experienced of the pair, Ted found himself having a certain admiration for the rookie.

"What are you doing on night shift, anyway?" he asked as they walked away from the all-night coffee shop and down the street.

"Needed the extra hours," Simmons said. "I had to take time off to help with my sister's kid."

"Niece or nephew?" Ted asked.

"Nephew. Going to turn four pretty soon. Aimee's boyfriend pulled the rug out from under her -- again -- and she didn't have anywhere else to go."

Ted, a black man in his mid-thirties, was a single father. He nodded in understanding. "Nice of you to help out."

"It's my sister. What else could I have done? Anyway, I need to make up for the time I missed, so here I am. Graveyard patrol."

Ted chuckled. "It's not as bad as you think this late into winter. Mostly you just stay warm and look out for people who are freezing to death."

"I'm surprised they even _have_ graveyard patrol in winter." Graveyard patrol was MPD slang for foot patrol during the third shift. It was arguably the least glamorous job in the department, but the pay was surprisingly good.

"Like I said," Ted replied, "really we just look out for people who are freezing to death."

"What, like that guy up there?" Simmons pointed half a block up to an Arab standing next to a white van, wearing jeans and a thin jacket -- much too thin for the sub-zero temperatures. He was shivering like crazy.

"Yeah," said Ted, "like that guy. See, the criminal element can be divided into three groups: the malicious, the hard-luck cases, and the crazies. Nights like this, all the malicious and hard-luckers are sane enough to stay inside where it's warm. Whereas the crazies . . ."

Simmons laughed -- but Ted knew the signs. The stiffer posture. The slightly glazed eyes. The hand creeping closer to the holster at his side. Simmons was nervous. Ted didn't blame him. Graveyard patrol was enough to make any rookie nervous, winter or no winter, and the fact that this particular crazy was an Arab didn't help. Ted knew that the MPD went to great lengths to keep racism off of the Force, and he would have sworn up and down that he had no racist tendencies himself, but after 9-11 . . . well, what can you do?

They approached the man, who didn't notice them until they were a few paces away. "You doing all right, sir?" Ted asked.

The man nodded. "Yes, just fine, thank you." His accent was thick.

"That jacket doesn't look too warm," Simmons observed.

The man smiled through his chattering teeth. "Jacket is fine. Thank you."

"What're you doing out here at this hour, sir?" Ted asked.

"Oh, I'm waiting. Waiting for friend."

Ted looked at his partner and shrugged slightly. He didn't look particularly dangerous, he was legally parked, and there was no law against freezing your ass off. He eyes gazed from the Arab to his van. "This your van, sir?"

The man, still smiling, looked from the van to the cop. "Yes. My van."

"Don't you think you might be warmer waiting for your friend in the van?"

"No, I'm warm enough. Just fine. Thank you, man."

Ted nodded. "Sir, could I see some identification?"

The Arab's smile froze slightly, and then returned to full intensity. Ted's hand was now casually resting on the butt of his gun as the man reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. He extracted a driver's license and handed it to Ted. Ted looked at the card, which identified the man in front of him as Hassan al-Rahmad. He carefully compared the face on the card to the face in front of him. Finally, he nodded. "Mr. al-Rahmad," he said, "I wonder if you could also show me the registration and insurance information for the van."

"Sure, okay," Hassan said, and opened the van door.

12:06:45

"She says it's reliable," Frost said, "and I trust her. She's as good as they come, and she wouldn't use an unreliable source."

"Be that as it may," came the voice on the other end, "the source is unconfirmed. It would be irresponsible to act on one man's word, no matter how reliable he is believed to be."

"I understand," said Frost. "With your permission, however, we'll try to get confirmation on our own."

"Fine. Just don't step on anyone's toes."

12::07:17

Ted looked up at the sound of drunken laughter. The young couple that had been staggering their way were almost on top of them now. They looked at the two cops and the man standing next to the white van with interest. "Book 'em, Dano," the young man said, and they laughed again.

Ted turned back to the insurance sheet in his hands, dismissing them. Simmons said, "Why don't you two just move along?"

"Oh, but this is _exciting!_" the young woman said. "Are you going to arrest him? He's probably a terrorist, you know." She dissolved into giggles.

"Ma'am," said Simmons, "I'm really gonna have to ask you to get moving. Go somewhere warm."

"Somewhere warm?" the young man said. "I'll show you somewhere warm!" He turned around, unzipped his fly, and mooned the police officers. The young woman laughed so hard she staggered and almost lost her balance.

Simmons looked at Ted, who looked back at him and nodded slightly. He walked closer to the young man, now pulling his pants up and trying to keep his balance. He reached for his handcuffs. "How does a nice, warm drunk tank sound?"

"Well, uh," said the young man, half-turning to him. "There's, like, a problem with me and drunk tanks . . ."

"I don't want to hear it. Put your hands behind your back, please."

"It's just that . . . you'll have to catch me first!" He took off running down the street, laughing as he did so. Simmons took off after him. Ted opened his mouth, about to stop, him, then decided against it. The kid could use some action, he decided, even if it is just chasing down a drunk—

There are a number of sounds – firecrackers, backfiring cars, slamming metal doors, to name a few – that many people easily mistake for gunshots. For a police officer who has spent a good amount of time on the firing range, and even more so for one who has discharged his weapon in the line of duty, the sound of a gunshot is unmistakable. Instant identification of that sound is a necessity for the job, as it triggers finely-developed instincts that could save a cop's life. Those instincts took control of Ted Garfield before his conscious mind even registered the two gunshots in rapid succession.

He whirled, drew his gun, and dropped to his knees. "_FREEZE!" _he yelled, and then saw:

Hassan al-Rahmad was slumping against the van, two gunshot wounds in his chest. The girl was already running away, gun clutched in her left hand, and was behind the corner of a building before al-Rahmad had even hit the ground.

"_I said FREEZE!"_ Ted yelled, already running after her.

He rounded the corner of the building, stopped, took aim with his pistol. Too late -- the girl had already taken off around another corner. She was _fast!_ "Simmons," he yelled as he ran after her, "call for backup!"

He heard another gunshot, from the other side of the building. Simmons? Or the young man?

Around the second corner: a chain link fence, the height of a man. The girl was already jumping down the other side and bolting for the side street. He stopped, took aim again. _"Stop right there!" _he yelled. She was bolting down the street, heading for an idling green car – the young man climbed in behind the wheel as he watched. He took off again, leapt at the fence and hauled himself over it just as the car took off on squealing brakes. At the base of the fence, Ted took aim, fired twice at the tires. He missed.

Ted swore, called into headquarters on his shoulder set and relayed the situation, including the license plate number of the getaway car, and ran around the third quarter of the building to look for Simmons. He found him lying on the sidewalk, clutching the hole in his stomach.

12:08:50

Breckenridge, a town 50 miles south of and across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota, was a sleepy town on a good night. And this was a good night, Richard Gaiman decided.

His small two-story house at the edge of town drew no attention, had nothing suspicious about it. It was the kind of place where kids could play in the yard without fear of flying cookware. Rick was even happy to retrieve lost balls from his small second-story balcony.

He was standing on that balcony now, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the stars. Orion was riding high, hunting his ever-elusive prey across eternity. He liked looking at Orion – it was about the only constellation he could recognize at a glance, aside from the Big Dipper, and he felt as though he were gathering strength from the great hunter. A psychological quirk, he knew, but Rick needed all the strength he could get.

Inside, his computer beeped. He glanced back, flicked the cigarette over the railing, and went inside. The computer screen was flashing DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. He sat down, mumbled a mantra to himself, and opened the file.

Perfect.

He double-checked the encrypted connection, and launched the chat program. It was a custom-built program, designed to establish a true one-on-one connection with the target computer, without having to go through a third-party server. It was not only faster; it was about as secure as you could get. His client was already waiting. He typed:

**Guyster: Evening. How's the back doing?**

Barely a moment passed before the answer came:

**EcksMarks: Terrible!**

This was a secret code between them -- it ensured that the client was not being monitored, or in some way compromised. Had "EcksMarks" responded that his back was doing fine, this would have meant that it was unsafe to transact. They would have talked about nothing for a few minutes, for the sake of any onlookers, then disconnected. The client's bad back meant a good connection.

**Guyster: Sorry to hear that. Well, I got the files.**

A moment, then:

**EcksMarks: YES! You are the MAN!**

**Guyster: I know.**

**EcksMarks: Man, I love you for this! You made my day! Can you send it over now?**

**Guyster: Not so fast. That'll be 1.5K, please.**

**EcksMarks: !?!?!?!**

**Guyster: That's a special discount price. If we were not friends, and if I actually NEEDED money, it would be twice that.**

**EcksMarks: You mean you don't actually need money!?**

**Guyster: I have a pension. It's almost enough, but not quite.**

**EcksMarks: How about $1,300?**

Gaiman sighed and stared up at the ceiling for a brief moment.

**Guyster: 1.3K is fine, and that's as low as I'll go. Transfer the money whenever you're ready.**

**EcksMarks: I'm on it. Give me a minute.**

It was, in fact, almost two minutes before Gaiman received an alert from another program: $1,300 had been transferred into his online account. He nodded to himself, satisfied, and began the process of transferring the downloaded material to his client.

**Guyster: It's on its way. Final warning: if anyone catches you with it, I don't exist.**

**EcksMarks: Right, man, I'm talking to myself. So did you get it from PT's servers?**

**Guyster: There was an earlier version on the PT's servers, it was obsolete. They keep their more critical files in isolated terminals.**

**EcksMarks: Isolated terminals are a problem for you!?**

**Guyster: PHYSICALLY isolated. No lines in or out. You'd actually have to sit down at the computer to access it.**

**EcksMarks: I see......so how did you get it?**

**Guyster: Only one place had it on an NT: the Pentagon.**

There was a good-sized pause.

**EcksMarks: THE Pentagon?**

**Guyster: Yep.**

**EcksMarks: omg, you are the MAN! How the hell did you pull that off!?!?**

Gaiman grinned.

**Guyster: Magic, my boy. Pure magic.**

12:14:24

The message appeared on Sonja Gilmour's terminal without warning:

**From MPD: White Chevy van, CO plates, found on Lyndale. Driver dead.**

Sonja blinked, then looked across the room. Jonathon Stolt was very pointedly not looking at her. "I hate it when you do that," she moaned.

Jon grinned. He was almost the mirror opposite of Sonja: six and a half feet tall, long red hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a shirt and tie. "Sorry," he said, "but that's what you're looking for, isn't it?"

"Read me the plate number." He did, and she nodded. "That's the one. Wait a sec . . . it was captured on Lyndale? _Our_ Lyndale?"

"None other."

"I wish I wasn't right all the time." She picked up the phone to call Frost.

12:14:58

The Minneapolis police worked fast: less than seven minutes after the first shot was fired, there were a dozen cops on the scene, including the chief of the precinct. The block was nearly roped off, the pictures were being taken, and things were generally under control. And Ted Garfield, in the midst of being debriefed, buried his face in his hands. The shock of the whole incident was only now beginning to catch up with him. One person dead, his partner down, and the criminals gone without a trace. Could it possibly have gone worse?

The chief, as if reading his thoughts, put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You did the best you could, Garfield," he said. "Those guys were pros, and they made damned sure that nobody would see this coming."

Ted looked up. "That supposed to make me feel better, Chief?"

"Nope. Just stating a fact."

One of the medics walked up to the officers. "Simmons will probably make it," he said. "He's stabilized for the moment, and they've already got an OR waiting for him at the hospital."

Ted nodded, relieved. The rookie would be all right; they would pull something out of this mess. He felt a little better. Then he looked toward the van, saw Hassan al-Rahmad being loaded into a body bag, and his thoughts darkened again. He turned back to the chief, looking for a distraction. "Why do you say that they were pros? I mean, they were fast, and they were convincing at acting drunk, but--"

"But there's no way in hell they would have killed this guy in front of a cop unless they _seriously_ wanted him dead."

"Yeah." He looked around, trying to take in the scene for the umpteenth time. "Yeah, you're right."

"Don't worry. We've already called the departments in the western suburbs and Saint Paul. They won't get far."

12:16:10

In a warehouse district near the city limits, a green car pulled up to one of the older specimens of warehouses and parked. A man and a woman, moving fast but not unduly rushing, climbed out and ducked inside. A moment passed, then a garage door in the side of the warehouse opened quietly and a blue minivan slipped out. It turned right onto the street, heading back through town.

12:16:55

The phone was ringing for the fifth time when Alexander Bowman was awake enough to answer it. Unlike most of his colleagues, Alex was not a night person -- he had already been sleeping for two hours when the call came, and the longest day of his life began.

"Grunh?" he said into the handset.

"Alex, it's Arthur. Wake up, and do it quickly."

Alex blinked, looked around at the clock on his bedside table. It was 12:17. "Art?" he muttered sleepily. "It's practically sunrise."

"That's what you think. I'll give you a couple minutes, but get up, come in, and I mean now."

Alex knew that Frost wasn't one to mince words, but he had rarely heard his boss sound so . . . well, bossy. His managerial style was more friendly, more relaxed. He only spoke in imperatives when something serious was happening. He sat up in bed, now quite awake. "PTA?" he asked.

"PTA."

"Bad?"

"Worse."

"Do I have time to shower?"

"No."

"I'll call you from the car," Alex said, and hung up. He dropped the phone on the bed, pushed aside the covers, and stood up. The room swam around him; stars drifted in and out of his vision. Had he been drunk? He couldn't have been, not while he was on call. He staggered to the open bathroom door, flipped on the light, and winced.

"Alex?" came a sleepy voice from the bed. Kirsten MacAndrew's head poked out from under the covers, her eyes squinting against the sudden light. Kirsten was not a night person either.

"Go back to sleep, babe," he said, turning on the sink and splashing cold water on his face. "They're calling me in."

"At this hour?"

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He reached for his contacts, but they weren't there. He glanced around the room -- no sign of them. "Babe, have you seen my contacts?"

Kirsten's head plopped back onto the pillow, and she yawned widely. "Aren't they by the sink?"

"They should be, but . . . oh, hell with it." He didn't feel like contacts anyway. He opened the mirror cabinet and pulled out his glasses case. He hadn't worn his glasses in months; it felt strange to be wearing them now. His vision now cleared, he looked in the mirror.

Alex Bowman was the assistant director at the Minneapolis division, the second-in-command to Frost. He was thirty-four years old, stood six-foot-two with a medium build, and short brown hair. He looked more like an intellectual than a Federal agent -- especially with the glasses on -- but a strict exercise regimen had kept him remarkably fit. He looked at his face, thought briefly about shaving, decided against it, and walked back into the bedroom. "Going to work in the morning?" he asked as a pulled a polo shirt over his head.

Kirsten grunted. "Few hours. We're finishing the PicoTech project this week."

Alex nodded. PicoTech was a software company universally agreed to be the only serious competitor to Microsoft. Picosystem was pre-packaged on a quarter of all the PCs now manufactured; it was a stable and user-friendly operating system, compatible with both Windows and Mac software. "These PT guys sound like slave masters."

"Not really," she mumbled. "They don't care how long it takes, they just want it done well."

He smiled as he pulled on a pair of jeans. "With you on the team, I'd say they'll get what they want." She chuckled a little. "Just don't push yourself too hard."

Kirsten rolled over and looked at him. "I could say the same to you," she said.

"I can look out for myself, Cat."

"You sure?"

He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. "Positive."

A moment later he was fully dressed, and as presentable-looking as he was going to get. He left the bedroom, stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab his winter jacket and an iced cappuccino, and went out to the garage. It was a heated garage, which was nice on his jeep. He climbed into the jeep as the garage door opened, started the car, turned on the heater, and backed out of the driveway. Alex Bowman lived in Wayzeta, an upper-class community on the western side of the Metro Area. The drive to Minneapolis was about twenty minutes.

PTA. Probable terrorist activity.

He turned onto the road leading to the freeway, then pulled out his cell phone and called the switchboard. A voice answered, "CTU Minneapolis."

12:20:32

Sonja stood behind Jon's chair, a cup from the water cooler in her hand. "Got anything else?"

"Yeah," Jon said, "an ID. Looks like he's a Muslim -- now why doesn't that surprise me?"

"Watch it," she said. Her current boyfriend came from a Muslim family.

"Sorry. Anyway, the name on the driver's license is Hassan al-Rahmad."

"False name," Sonja said without hesitation.

Jon looked up. "How do you know?"

"Al-Rahmad is usually translated as 'the Almighty' or 'the Merciful.' It's a word that is meant to apply to God, and to God alone. There's no reason for a non-Muslim to have that as his given name, whereas to a Muslim it would be blasphemy. Like you naming yourself Jon the Christ and Savior."

He raised an eyebrow. "How do you know I'm _not_ the Christ and Savior?"

The phone on her desk rang. She set the water cup down in front of Jon. "Turn this into wine," she said and walked back to her desk. Jon grinned to himself and went back to work. 

At her desk, Sonja picked up her handset. "Gilmour."

"I've got Alex on the line," came Frost's voice. "Fill him in, please."

"Hey boss, where are you now?" Sonja asked. Although Frost was a good guy and a competent manager, he seemed to keep a fair distance from the lower ranks of the CTU hierarchy. He was therefore "Director Frost" or "Mr. Frost," while Alex Bowman was "the boss."

"I'm just about on 394, heading into town." The line with Alex's voice sounded crackly. Sonja had asked him several times when he would get a decent cell phone. "So what's the story?"

She sat down at her desk and pulled up windows on her terminal. "Okay, here's the short version. Four months ago, a batch of exotic virus samples was discovered in Syria. They had been stolen from the CDC in Atlanta some weeks previously. Problem was, only half the samples were there."

"And the rest of them?"

"Never recovered, but rumors abound that they were kept by some terrorist organization or another and being developed into more virulent, infectious strains."

"Al Qaeda?"

"We simply don't know, Alex."

"'Kay. Go on."

"Two hours ago, I received information from one of my sources in the Middle East. A very reliable source, before you ask. He says that a mutated form of one of the viruses was in a cargo container heading somewhere in the Midwest. He gave the serial number of the container, and I tracked its location. It was shipped to Duluth. It arrived this afternoon."

"So we're talking about a biological release weapon."

"A big one. Airborne, invariably infectious, mortality rate 72 percent. There's enough of the virus that, depending on the wind patterns, most of the Metro Area could be affected."

A long pause as Alex digested this information. "And it's here?" he asked quietly.

"It's here. The man who signed for the cargo container was driving a white van with Colorado plates. The signature was too illegible to get a name. That van was found in the downtown area fifteen minutes ago. The driver was killed, and a policeman was injured."

"How?"

"Two people came along and shot them."

"The van?"

"Empty."

"All right. I want a full briefing when I get in -- about fifteen minutes or so."

"You got it, boss."

12:25:01

Ted Garfield stood facing the white fan, which was now being poured over by a host of police officers. He doubted that they would find anything, but he was as curious as the rest of them about who the driver was, and why someone was determined to have him killed. The only hints so far were al-Rahmad's driver's license, and the registration and insurance information in the car. The registration showed the van to have belonged to Oakwood Enterprises, Inc. in Colorado Springs. The insurance was in order. So far, nothing helpful had turned up.

The chief came to stand next to Ted again. Ted looked at him. "Any word on Simmons yet?"

"They probably just got to the hospital," said the chief. "Have patience, Ted. As soon as we know something, you'll know it too, I promise."

Ted nodded. It would have to do.

Thie chief looked at him. "You've had a long night," he observed. "I'm sure we can finish the paperwork and what-have-you in the morning. Go and take the rest of the night off. Tuck your kid into bed."

Ted shook his head. "Shauna's in good hands with my aunt. Anyway, I'm not going to be able to sleep. Not for a while."

"Chief!" called one of the officers from inside the van. "Take a look at this!"

Ted followed the chief to the back of the van. The door was standing wide open, and one of the cops was holding a sealed test tube in a pair of tweezers. "Looks like it's empty," the cop said. "So are the rest of them."

"The rest of them?"

"Yeah, there are a few more back here. They were wedged between the seats. One of them is broken, but the rest are intact."

"Put that down, now!" said the chief. "Get away from the van! Everyone, clear the van immediately!"

The cops moved, and moved quickly. Ten seconds later, they were all standing at least twenty feet away from the van. Ted looked at the chief curiously. The chief triggered his radio. "Dispatch, we have a code 46 here -- possible bio-hazard. We need detox and decontamination units down here, and we need them ten minutes ago."

The radio squawked an acknowledgement. Ted said, "You think there's something in those test tubes?"

"It wouldn't surprise me," he said. "Probably I'm just being paranoid, but if this guy was up to something, then there'd be only one reason for him to have test tubes there. I just hope it's not too late . . ."

Ted shivered.

12:27:12

Omar ibn-Hammad answered the phone on the first ring. "Yes," he said in English.

"Mission successful," came an unaccented female voice on the other end. "Hassan is dead, and we are clear of the area."

"Excellent. Well done. What is your twenty?"

"We're now on 35, just passing the Interstate loop. ETA twenty-five minutes."

"Understood. What was the delay in reporting in?"

"There was a problem," came the response. "A couple of policemen were there at the time. We think we killed one of them."

"You think?" Omar's voice was ice. "What of the other policeman?"

"We evaded him successfully. We wanted to be sure we were clear before reporting."

"I understand." Omar paused for a moment, reflecting. "No harm done, as long as they can't trace your whereabouts. If there were only one or two eyewitnesses, we can safely see you out of the country before law enforcement gets its act together. I will make the arrangements now."

"And our fee?"

"Payment in full upon your return, as agreed."

"Very good." She broke the connection.

"Bitch," Omar muttered, and put down the phone. He turned to the large man standing impassively in a corner of the room. _"I shall be gone for a couple hours,"_ he said in French. _"Your tasks have been assigned, and I would appreciate them completed before I return. Any questions?"_

The large man shook his head.

_"Fine,"_ said Omar, and took his winter coat from the hook as the large man disappeared into the other room. Omar switched off the light, leaving the cabin in darkness, and stepped outside.

The air was cold, brisk, and the stars were shining down. Omar's eyes automatically turned to Orion, the Hunter. Although he could recognize most of the constellations at a glance, Orion had always been his favorite. He seemed to draw a certain amount of strength from it, from watching the hunter defeat his prey, holding it up in victory.

"We are so very much alike, you and I," he whispered. After a last moment's look, he turned and walked toward the car in the driveway.

12:29:48

"It's coming up on half past the hour," said the radio announcer. "Time for a news update, and the story right now is the weather. Today, of course, was nice and calm, but it looks as though that's all going to change pretty soon. A large storm front, which has been steadily growing in size all day, is expected to hit the Valley in the next hour to hour and a half. Expect blizzard conditions, icy roads, and gusts of up to forty-five miles per hour. Snowfall is expected to be between three and six inches. This system is coming in fairly quickly from the west-northwest, which means it should pass through quickly -- but as I said, it's a big one. So you night people out there, if you don't have to do any driving between now and sunrise, please stay off the roads. Stay inside where it's warm, and let the snowplows do their work. In regional news--"

Gaiman switched off the radio and pulled a cup of hot chocolate from the microwave. He intended to follow orders to the letter -- when you're standing inside looking out at the snow, it's beautiful. When you're out driving in it, it's crap from the skies.

The screen was now flashing, "UPLOAD COMPLETE." He set the cup of hot chocolate on the desk, leaned down to the keyboard, and typed:

**Guyster: You're all set. Have a nice day.**

He disconnected the program before the client could answer. Then he stepped out onto the balcony for one last smoke.

12:32:00

Reginald Chaplain appeared as pompous as the name suggested -- he always showed up to work in a full suit. The only other CTU agent to _ever_ wear a full suit was Frost, and he only wore them for the sake of visiting dignitaries. His manner, however, was friendly and casual. Jon looked at him as he turned a revolving desk chair backwards and sat down to face him and Sonja. "You got here fast."

"I was at a party, already decked out for the occasion. So what's the story?"

Sonja and Jon spent the next few minutes filling him in. Chaplain listened wordlessly, not interrupting, only nodding thoughtfully. When they finished he said, "Lyndale. You know, I passed them just now, on my way in. I saw the van, and a whole bunch of cops."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, and they were all standing a good distance from the van."

Jon and Sonja exchanged looks. "Could it have been?" Jon asked.

"If so, it's too late now," Sonja replied. "The policeman would be infected, and Reggie, you might have even been infected just by driving by."

"Oh? What's the infection rate?"

"Virtually 100 percent."

Chaplain gave out a low whistle, then thought for a moment. "If the van _was_ infected, then I agree, it's too late. And if that's the case, MPD will figure it out soon enough. So let's proceed, for now, on the assumption that we are _not_ all screwed to high heaven. I assume that everyone's been called in?"

"Everyone on call, and then some. Frost is in his office, and Alex should be arriving any minute."

12:36:42

Alex turned onto Washington Avenue, drove a few blocks before coming upon the CTU building. It was a small structure, with no exterior markings or anything to indicate what it was. He turned into the parking lot, easily found a space, and parked. After turning the engine off, he simply sat there for a few seconds, relaxing. Days like this, peace and quiet were rare, and would only be found where you were able to find them.

Before the car started to get cold again, Alex opened the door and got out, shutting the door behind him. He did not bother to lock it.

The main entrance was on the side of the building: a simple double glass door. He entered, stomped the lingering snow off of his shoes, reached into his pocket and pulled out his ID card. "Evening, Phil," he said to the guard sitting behind the security desk as he inserted his card into the reader and placed his thumbprint on the optical scanner. He held it there for a few seconds, allowing the tiny processor inside the reader to make sure that the same Alexander Bowman identified by the card was the same Alexander Bowman who wished to enter the building. After a brief pause, the machine beeped and Alex removed his card.

"Long night, Mr. Bowman?" the guard inquired.

Alex half-smiled. "We can only hope not."

He went through the turnstile, down a short corridor and into the main room of CTU Minneapolis. It was neither as large nor as up-to-date as the main rooms in the larger CTU branches such as New York and Los Angeles, but it was fully functional nonetheless. The obligatory wall screens, the scattered computer terminals, the storage cabinets -- all there. There were perhaps a dozen people working at the moment, a few looking like they had just arrived as he had. He spotted Sonja and Jon sitting with Reggie Chaplain at Jon's desk, and walked toward them.

". . . field teams, so I think if anyone can find this bio-weapon, he can," Jon was saying. He looked up and saw Alex. "Speak of the devil."

"Jon," Alex said, throwing his coat over an empty chair, "please don't make any promises on my behalf. I'm notorious for them."

"I speak simple truth, Boss."

"Nothing is ever simple with you." 

"Nice glasses, by the way."

"Har har." He sat down, grinning slightly at the good-natured ribbing. "Anything new?"

"You didn't drive down Lyndale, did you?" Chaplain asked.

"No, came straight down Washington."

"Good. You have survival instincts."

Sonja rolled her eyes and shook her head. Alex blinked. "What do you mean? Lyndale, that's where they found the van, right?"

"There's a possibility the bio-weapon may be, or have been, in the van," Sonja said. "MPD found apparently empty sealed test tubes, some of them broken."

"Oh boy." Alex ran his hands through his hair. "I knew I should have stayed in bed. Okay. Call MPD, have them send us one of the intact ones. I want our people to analyze it."

"We don't have the facilities--"

"I trust Lorraine," Alex said. "What about the assassins?"

"No word on them yet," said Jon. "One of the cops -- the one who wasn't shot -- got the make, model and license plate number of the getaway car. We're scouring the city now. They couldn't have gone far in that time."

"Alex!"

Alex looked over his shoulder, saw Arthur Frost standing at his office door, beckoning him. "I am summoned," he said, and stood up. "One more thing -- let's see if we can get that cop in here. I want to talk to him myself."

"They'll all probably wind up in medical quarantine until we can clear them," Jon said.

"I know. But as soon as possible, okay?"

"You got it."

Alex nodded, satisfied, and walked over to Frost's office. At the door, the two men shook hands. "Thanks for coming in," the director said, allowing him in. He closed the door behind him, walked behind his desk and sat facing Alex. "Sonja already told you what we know, so I don't have to tell you how bad it could be. Keep in mind, first of all, that so far our only basis for this PTA alert is one source, unconfirmed. So it's a good bet that this will turn out to be nothing. But . . ."

"But we don't like the size of the pot," Alex said.

"Exactly. We are trying to get confirmation, and in the meantime we treat it as probable, just to be on the safe side."

Alex nodded. "Well, you know us, Art. We work fast."

"I know you do." Frost paused for a moment, then leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly. "Alex, as a personal favor to me, keep your eyes open when you're among the troops."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, we can't afford any leaks to the outside."

Alex's gaze froze on his superior. "You're not serious. You suspect there's a mole?"

"I don't really suspect that," said Frost. "At least, I have no reason to think so. But as you said, it's a big pot, and we can't afford to make the mistake of not being sure. Especially after what happened in LA."

Alex nodded. "You don't need to remind me," he said.

"Good. As I said, I have no reason to suspect anyone. It's just something to file away at the back of your mind. We have to be sure."

"I understand."

12:43:05

The detox and decon teams had arrived, and were beginning their work. "What I need," said one of the decon workers through an air mask, "is for everyone who has been within fifty feet of the van to stand over here. Stay close together."

Ted moved with all the rest into the tiny space set aside for the police officers. Part of him thought that this was ridiculous, that they were being kept from actually getting some work done. He knew, as did every good officer, that murder investigations were almost invariably solved either within the first six hours, or not at all. This was taking precious time away from that. But another part of him insisted that this was probably a good idea . . .

"Hopefully," the decon officer was saying, "this will turn out to be nothing, and you can get back to work shortly. It will take about twenty minutes to run the toxic, viral and bacteriological checks. Please just be patient with us."

"Patient," muttered the chief. "Right."

Another decon officer, also sporting an air mask, approached the group of quarantined officers. "Which one of you is Garfield?"

"I am," said Ted.

"We just got a message from the precinct. Once you're done here, they want to interview you down at CTU."

"CTU?" Ted frowned. "The Counter Terrorist Unit?"

"Right."

"What if he has the Ebola virus?" one of the cops said, not completely joking.

"They said to stick him in a plastic bubble if we had to."

"You have plastic bubbles in that truck?"

"We have everything," the decon officer said without a trace of humor.

12:45:29

"They found it," Jon called out to Alex, scribbling something on a notepad.

"Found what?"

"The getaway car. MPD found it in the old warehouse district, just a few minutes from here. There's nobody there, though." He tore off the sheet of paper and handed it back to Alex. Alex looked at the address.

"The assassins probably switched cars," said Frost, looking over Alex's shoulder.

"If they're smart, they did."

"Trust me," said Frost. They're smart. Gutsy, too, to shoot that guy right in front of a cop."

"Yeah. I want to go anyway, Art. They might have left something in the car that we can use. It's also possible they're hiding in one of the surrounding buildings."

Frost considered, then nodded. "Take Chaplain. And don't be gone too long."

"I'm driving," said Chaplain, reaching for his coat.

Alex nodded, then turned back to Frost. "One more thing," he said. "I want to call Gaiman in."

Frost frowned. "Gaiman? Do you even know where he is these days?"

"Upstate somewhere, I forget which town. If we're right about this, we could really use his help."

"Alex, Rick Gaiman is--"

"I know what he is," Alex said, a little too sharply. Frost stared at him.

"You already have Jon," he said.

"Jon is good. Rick is the best."

"I agree with Alex, sir," said Jon. "Gaiman is better than I am. I think we could use him."

Frost sighed and nodded. "Call him in. But you're responsible for him, Alex." He waved a stern finger at his assistant director. "Anything goes wrong--"

"I'll watch him like a hawk. Thank you, sir." Alex had already pulled out his cell phone, and started to dial as he followed Chaplain to the doors.

12:47:57

Rick Gaiman was about to turn out the light when the phone rang. He sighed, swore softly, and waited in the hopes that whoever it was would just go away. Eleven rings later, it was obvious that they wouldn't. He snatched up the bedside phone receiver. "What is it?"

"Rick, it's Alex."

Rick paused for a long moment. "Alex?"

"Yeah, it's me, buddy."

Rick leaned back against the headboard and mused. "Isn't it way past your bedtime?"

"How soon can you get down here?"

"Not funny, Alex."

"Not meant to be. We have a situation."

"That's what CTU is all about, Alex: one long situation after another."

"Just listen, okay?" Alex spent a minute giving him the short version of events. Rick listened without comment.

"Okay," he said finally, "so this isn't just one of those things. But what do you need with me?"

"We need your skills. Your talents."

"You have Stolt."

"I said this just a few minutes ago, and I'll say it again now: Jon is good. You're the best."

Gaiman rolled his eyes. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Alex, I'm out. Remember? I'm done with the game."

"This is not a game. This is thousands of lives."

"Damn you." He closed his eyes, took in a long, deep breath and exhaled it. "I'll have to leave very soon," he finally said. "There's a storm system moving in, and I'll barely get out of town ahead of it."

"Fine. How soon can you be here? And where the hell are you these days, anyway?"

"Breckenridge, on the North Dakota border. I can be there in three, three and a half hours if I really push it."

"Really push it."

"Okay." He swung his legs out of bed, stood up and went into motion. "I just hope the old Nissan makes it that far."

"I'm sure it will. Come straight to CTU. We'll be waiting."

"Hey, Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"You owe me _big._"

He hung up the phone, stared at it for a long moment, asked himself what the hell he was doing. But he knew the answer.

He finished getting dressed.

12:50:28

"Sonja," said Jon, "I need a socket at my terminal."

"You got it." Sonja typed fast.

"Thanks." Jon worked for a moment as Frost, on one of his rare walks across the floor, looked over his shoulder. He frowned in puzzlement.

"I thought Sonja already went through the CDC files," he said.

"She did," said Jon. "This is different. A hunch I'm playing. I figure that to mutate a strand of viral DNA to a certain degree of specifity would take a great deal of resources. I'm trying to get a feel for what it would take to turn the most virulent of the stolen samples from Atlanta into the virus that Sonja's source tells us about."

"Money, I'm afraid, is something that many terrorist organizations are not short on."

"Yeah, well, money is only part of it. You need high-tech equipment, a safe lab environment, not to mention scientists -- or at least people with microbiological training." He looked back at Frost. "The hunch, sir, is that they would need custom-built equipment, or at least hard-to-find equipment."

Frost nodded in understanding. "And the more hard-to-find the equipment . . ."

". . . the more likely we can track it down."

"How long will it take?"

"We'd need to consult some specialists, so call it a matter of hours. Like I said, sir, just a hunch. Not high priority. I just thought--"

"You thought well," said Frost. "Keep it on the back burner, but do what you can with it. Good work." He clapped Jon on the shoulder and walked off to check on another agent.

12:53:03

The blue minivan pulled up to the darkened cabin. The young man looked at the young woman in confusion. "This the right address?"

The woman nodded. "Looks like nobody's home."

"They may not have arrived yet." He opened his door. "Come on, let's go in. I don't want to wait out here."

The woman shrugged and followed him out onto the driveway. As they approached the house, they saw that the front door was slightly ajar. The man and woman exchanged glances, then drew their pistols. The man moved slowly up the patio stairs toward the front door, the woman a close step behind him. Their eyes darted to and fro, noting every detail, looking for the slightest hint of movement. The man reached the front door, glanced inside -- it was much too dark to see anything. He looked at his partner, bent his head slightly, and they moved quietly to either side of the door.

The man squeezed his eyes shut, kept them shut for half a minute. When he opened his eyes again, they were adjusted to the darkened conditions, and he could make out much more detail in the moonlight. He bent his head back through the doorway, and saw the empty living room. He nodded at the woman, then quietly slipped into the cabin, pointing his gun this way and that. They took a step into the living room. Two steps. Three. The man looked to his right. The short hallway leading into the kitchen, the kitchen table, the assorted cabinets and cookware, and the large Frenchman with the infrared goggles and the silenced pistol were the last things that he ever saw. An instant later, there was a bullet in his brain.

The woman reacted instantly when she saw her partner begin to fall; her mind instantly noted the muted gunshot, the angle at which the man jerked back, the force of the impact. Her unconscious mind had sized up the situation before the man's body hit the ground, and instinct took over. She turned, moved to the side, scanned quickly for a man-sized target, found it, aimed her pistol, and fired -- all in less than one second.

In two seconds, she was dead.

The Frenchman took off his goggles, flipped on the light, and checked himself quickly. He was unharmed, but there was a slight tear in his plaid button-down shirt where the woman's shot had just grazed him. _"Merde,"_ he said, looking over the tear. It was nothing serious, but he would have to sew it up eventually.

He dropped the pistols and the goggles onto the kitchen table. He walked into the living room, stepped over the two corpses, and turned on the radio. A soft classical melody filled the room -- perfect. He turned up the volume, grabbed his coat, put it on and stepped outside. He glanced at his watch -- a good hour and a half before his employer would return. Plenty of time.

He opened the tailgate of the minivan and began to unload it, humming to himself.

12:54:58

Chaplain nodded at the warehouse ahead. "This would be it."

"Right." Alex pulled out his service pistol, checked it quickly, and stuffed it into his belt. Chaplain glanced at him as he pulled the car to the side of the road, behind three MPD squad cars. Alex returned the glance. "Never hurts to be cautious," he said.

"That's what my mom always said. Then she had me." Chaplain climbed out of the car, laughing at his own joke. Alex followed.

A uniformed officer was there to meet them. She was keeping one wary eye on the warehouse as she addressed them: "They went in that warehouse, probably had a car there waiting for them, took off right away. We just finished sweeping it. Except for a few old crates and containers, it's empty."

"Why is it dark inside?" Alex asked, peering at the darkened doorway into the warehouse.

"We're trying to find the light switch – ah, there we go," she said as the interior came alive with ceiling lights. "I imagine it's safe to go in. Forensics and the K-9 unit will be showing up soon, so don't mess anything up."

"Don't need to tell us twice," muttered Chaplain as he followed Alex into the warehouse. It was indeed mostly empty floor space within, with scattered crates and boxes, and a quartet of cops scanning the place. What immediately caught the eyes of both CTU agents was the large container right in the middle of the floor, fire engine red.

"Didn't your sergeant say that this place had been abandoned for a while?" Alex called to one of the cops.

The cop, a youngish man with a confident demeanor, nodded. "A couple years, at least. Not even squatters would bother with this dump."

"Then why is there no dust on that container?" asked Chaplain.

The cop turned, stared at the container for a moment. "You're right," he said. "I didn't think about it before, but it does look like a recent addition."

"Think about it now," Alex said, pulling out his cell phone. He auto-dialed headquarters as he walked around the container. On the back side of the container was a serial number, painted in large white characters: JS-0049163.

"CTU, Gilmour," came the voice over the phone.

"Sonja, Alex. Do you have the serial number of the cargo container that came out of Duluth?"

"Got it right here."

"Read it to me."

"Juliet sierra zero zero four niner one six three."

He glanced at Chaplain, who was pulling out a small digital camera, and nodded. "We got the container right here in the warehouse. Looks like our friends were here, but they've been gone a while."

"Okay, I'll tell Frost and we'll . . . squad and decon units."

Alex frowned. "Sonja, you're starting to break up."

"I said . . . sending the bomb squad and decon units."

"Right. I'll call you back – the reception is less than great inside the building." He disconnected the phone and walked over to Chaplain. "What's that?"

"What does it look like?" There was a small door on one side of the large metal compartment, slightly ajar. Chaplain bent down to open it further.

"Careful," Alex warned.

"I am always careful." Chaplain slowly pulled the door open. Inside was a small recess, which appeared empty. "An auxiliary compartment," he said. "Must have been knocked open during shipment. Don't think – hello, what's this?" He indicated the inside of the small door, on which was painted a message in flowing Arabic script. Chaplain looked up. "Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh is right. Are you sure there was nothing in there? What about biological or chemical agents?"

"This compartment isn't air tight. If there was anything in here, it was removed." Chaplain raised the camera, snapped a picture of the Arabic lettering, and handed the camera to Alex. "Set up the remote link, send that image to headquarters. Get it translated."

Alex nodded. "I'm going to go outside to do it; the reception is bad in here. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Reg." He left Chaplain poking around inside the smaller compartment and headed for the warehouse door, dialing on his cell phone as he walked.

"CTU, Gilmour," came Sonja's voice again.

"Me. I'm sending you an image from the digicam. It's a message in Arabic, painted on the compartment. Get somebody to translate it."

"I can translate it myself," she said. "I'm fluent in Arabic."

Alex couldn't suppress a grin as he fiddled with the camera, initiating the file transfer to CTU. "Do you have any other talents I haven't found out about?"

"That would be telling, boss."

"I suppose. Are you getting it?"

"Yeah, it's coming."

A few seconds later, the miniature screen on Alex's camera flashed, TRANSMISSION COMPLETE. Sonja's response was immediate.

"It says, 'I am a bomb. You have sixty seconds to live.' Alex—"

Alex didn't hesitate. He whirled and ran back into the warehouse. "_CHAPLAIN!"_ he yelled. _"EVERYBODY! GET AWA—"_

The container disappeared in a tremendous concussion of fire and thunder. The shock of the explosion lifted Alex clear off the ground, threw him five feet backward, and smashed him into the wall of the warehouse. His world became darkness and silence, and he felt no pain.

1:00:00


	2. 1:00 AM to 2:00 AM

_The following takes place between __1:00 AM__ and __2:00 AM_

_on the day of the State of the __Union__ address._

1:00:00

The sound of the distant explosion reached Omar ibn-Hammad, driving on the interstate through Minneapolis. Judging from the interval between the flash and the sound of the explosion, it was just over a mile away . . . yes, that would be the warehouse. Omar raised his eyebrows and glanced at the radio clock. It was exactly 1:00.

He picked up the cell phone he had tossed on the passenger seat, and auto-dialed a number. The Frenchman answered on the second ring. _"Oui?"_

_"How are things on your end?"_ Omar asked in French.

_"Team One has been disposed of. I am unloading the vehicle now, and should have the device ready for your return. And you?"_

_"Our friends at the police department have found the control bomb."_

_"Already? It was supposed to have taken them at least three or four hours."_

Omar grimaced. _"The policeman they failed to kill must have gotten the plates of the getaway car. American police may be inept, but they are not completely unintelligent. In any case, we will have to accelerate our schedule accordingly. Does this present a problem?"_

_"Not for me."_

_"Good."_ He hung up without further words.

1:01:24

The world started to return around Alex Bowman – first the sensation of hard concrete under his body, followed by the sound of the MPD OIC calling his name, followed by a blurred image of the woman herself. He blinked, and winced in pain – his head must have knocked against something. He tried to focus on the female officer.

"Are you all right, sir?"

Alex grunted, tried to sit up. The cop lifted up his arm and slowly shouldered him to his feet. Alex tried to take in more of his surroundings. There was a large fire in the middle of the warehouse, where there used to be a cargo container. Several crates and one wall of the warehouse were also ablaze. Half a dozen cops were moving around the fire, talking into their radios, breathing through handkerchiefs, and generally acting as confused as he himself felt. He took a breath, and coughed – the air was filled with smoke.

"Sir," said the cop, "we've got to get you out of here. This building might go."

She tried to pull Alex away, but Alex stayed his ground and looked toward the fire for a moment longer. Then he saw him . . . Reggie Chaplain, unmoving, almost unrecognizable, being dragged away by a cop.

_"No!"_ he cried, jerked his arm away from the officer, and tried to move toward him. He made only three steps before his legs gave away and he fell to the ground. The officer was at his side again at once, pulling him up and half-leading, half-dragging him to the exit.

"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "Your partner must have died instantly. One of my men is dead too." She gently sat him down on the hood of one of the squad cars. "Another is seriously hurt. You seem to be okay, aside from a few cuts and scrapes."

"Head hurts," he mumbled, trying to fight back tears. _Reggie . . ._

"The ambulance is on its way. They'll check you out, make sure you don't have a concussion."

Alex could only nod, bury his head in his hands, and wait for the bad dream to end.

1:02:31

"I don't know anything else, sir," said Sonja Gilmour over the general uproar in the CTU control room. "It had to be an explosion, and I can't raise Alex or Reggie. Jon, have you tried MPD?" Across the room, Jon Stolt waved absently as he talked into his own handset.

"Jesus," Arthur Frost moaned. "He should have waited. Those bastards, they should have waited for the bomb squad!"

"From Alex's description, it didn't look dangerous. I'm sure they would have waited if it was." She bit on a fingernail. "I'm sure they're okay. I mean, they have to be okay . . ." She looked up at Frost, almost pleadingly.

Jon jogged over to them. "It was an explosion," he said without preamble. "One of our guys is dead – it sounded like Reggie. No mention of Alex."

Frost sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment.

"Jon," he said at length, "I want you to go down there. Check on Alex, and confirm the situation. I want to be sure before I call Sondra and tell her that her husband is dead."

"I'll go," said Sonja. "Jon was working on an important thread, and we don't want to lose it, even with this."

"Fine. Ben!" He called to another agent standing nearby. Ben Hanson, a short man in his early forties, moved to join them. "Go with Gilmour. I want to hear back from you in no more than half an hour. And under no circumstances are you to put yourself at risk. One loss today is one too many."

"Yes, sir." Sonja grabbed her coat and led Hanson out of the building.

1:04:16

All of the police officers breathed a sign of relief when the head of the decontamination unit nodded in satisfaction and pulled off his air mask. "Folks," he said loudly, "it's all clear. There's nothing dangerous in the air here. You can go about your work."

There was a happy and relieved muttering as the officers went back to their tasks, mostly in and around the white van. Ted Garfield simply stood there for a long moment, staring at nothing. Two scares like this in less than an hour was more than any man should have to handle. He had known that being a cop was high-risk work, but this was the first time he had actually found himself in real danger. The most danger he had ever found himself in before this was four years ago, when he had drawn his pistol and fired a warning shot while chasing a trio of armed robbers down the street. Even then, his life was not in any real danger.

He simply stood there for a moment, glad to be alive. But then he remembered Bobby Simmons, and his heart sank.

"Everything okay?" The chief, speaking softly at his side. Ted forced a smile and nodded. "Now I mean it this time, Ted: go home, get some rest, and be with your daughter."

"Can't." Ted rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Have to go down to the CTU building for a debriefing."

"Oh, right, I forgot. Well, I'm sure if I talked to them—"

"No, that's okay, Chief. I want to get this over with." He smiled again, and it came more easily this time. "Thanks anyway."

The chief nodded curtly and slapped Ted on the shoulder. "Don't let them give you any bull down there."

"I won't. Say, Chief, can I borrow your phone for a couple minutes?"

"Surely." The chief pulled out his cell phone, handed it to Ted, and politely stepped out of earshot. Ted dialed a number and put the phone to his ear. 

"Hello?" came a familiar voice after the third ring.

"Aunt Gracie, it's me," Ted said.

"Teddy! I was listening to the radio, and I heard about the shooting. Were you there? Are you all right?"

_It's on the news already? At this hour?_ Ted shook his head. "I was there, Aunt Gracie, but I'm fine. Everything is okay over here."

"Those vile people!" hissed the voice of the usually pleasant Aunt Gracie. "They should be ashamed of themselves, killing a poor innocent man like that!"

"Yeah. Aunt Gracie, how's Shauna doing?"

"She's fine, she's sound asleep. Would you like me to wake her up?"

"No, no, that's okay." _At least one of us will get some sleep tonight,_ he thought. "I was just checking. Listen, they're letting me off early tonight. I have to head somewhere for a while, then I should be home – hopefully not more than an hour."

"Okay. Are you sure everything's all right, dear?"

Ted bit his lip, thought of telling her about Simmons, decided against it. "Everything's fine here. I have to run now. You don't have to wait up for me."

"You take care of yourself, do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Aunt Gracie. Bye. Love you."

He hung up the phone and handed it back to the chief, nodding his thanks. "Any chance I can catch a ride to the CTU building?"

"Give me a few minutes here, I'll take you myself."

"Thanks." Ted turned back to look at the white van, and tried to sort out his thoughts.

1:07:44

A year ago, shortly after leaving CTU, Rick Gaiman swore that he would never again use a cell phone. He would, if necessary, be the last person on earth to not have one. Two months later, he resumed the service on his personal cell, and even used it once or twice a month. Now, ten minutes out of Breckenridge, he pulled it out and dialed a number from memory.

"Yo!" came a slightly crazed female voice.

"Jacqui, it's Rick."

The briefest of pauses, then: "Ricky? Hey, how the hell are you? I haven't heard from you in ages!"

Rick managed a grin. "I'm hanging in there. I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"Do I sound like you woke me up?" A high-pitched giggle. Rick rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, stupid question. Any chance you could help me out with something?"

"Whatcha need?"

"CTU called me in to help them with something—"

"CTU?" An exaggerated sigh. "Rick, I thought they were paying you to _not_ work for them."

"Well, they happened to be rather persuasive in this case. What I need is for you to check the files of the FBI, CIA, DoD, and anyone else you can think of for known or suspected bio-terrorism. Then cross-check that list for links to Minneapolis and/or Minnesota."

"Bio-terrorists?" A long pause. "Something serious is up, isn't it?"

"'Fraid so."

"Why would any terrorist, bio or otherwise, have ties to Minneapolis?"

"I don't know – for all I know, none of them do. But I have to start somewhere, and there's not much I can do at the moment."

"Are you at CTU now?"

"Actually," he said with a slight grin, "I'm on my way to Fergus Falls, on my way to the Cities."

"I'm guessing you won't have time to stop by."

"Sorry."

"I'm used to it. Well, give me half an hour and I'll see what I can come up with."

"You're my hero, Jacqui."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before too. Rick . . ." Another long pause. "You have quite a ways to drive. Are you sure you're good for it?"

Rick's hand clenched tighter around the cell phone. "Jacqui, I'm _fine._ I've been fine for a while now."

"I wouldn't be your friend if I didn't ask."

"If you want to be my friend," he said icily, "then get me those names."

"Fine. Sorry."

She hung up.

1:10:02

The paramedic was examining Alex's head with a critical eye. "Doesn't look too serious," he said. "You might want to consider a few tests to make absolutely sure there's no concussion, but I won't worry right now. You're going to have a hell of a goose-egg, though."

"Yeah." Alex scratched at the sore spot at the back of his head. "What about this cut on my arm, will it need stitches?"

"Nah. It's not too deep, and the bleeding's already stopped. I'll bandage it up for you – just be sure to keep it dry for a few days."

"Right." He turned away from the sight of the paramedic tinkering with the gash in his right forearm, just in time to see a CTU car pull up to the curb at breakneck speed, its brakes squealing it to a stop less than an inch from the fire engine. Alex grinned – he didn't need to peer through the windshield to tell it was Sonja driving.

Sure enough, Sonja climbed out of the driver's seat. She immediately ran over to Alex, accompanied by Ben Hanson. "Boss!" she said, her arms open to hug him, and stopped herself short when she saw what the paramedic was doing.

"Yeah," said Alex, "I'm a bit fragile right now. I appreciate the thought, though." He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder for a moment, then reached over to shake Hanson's hand. "Hi, Ben."

"Hi, boss. Is it true about Chaplain?"

Alex nodded somberly. "He was right next to it when it . . ." He broke off. They all stood in mute sadness for what seemed like a long time.

"All done," said the paramedic, finishing the wrapping of Alex's arm. "Remember to keep it dry, and don't use the arm much for a while."

"Thanks," said Alex as the paramedic returned to the ambulance. He looked back at Sonja. "Well, I don't know about any biological release weapons, but we're dealing with _something_ here."

Sonja looked even unhappier. "I'm sorry, boss; I should have caught it in time. I don't know why—"

"They wanted to surprise us. Remember your training? The main value in terrorism is its shock value on the targeted group or society, which means it's most useful when you don't see it coming. These guys are _good,_ Sonja."

"Not good enough, though," said Hanson.

"Damned right. We're going to pull out everything we have, and with any luck at all, those sons of bitches won't see it coming either. Anything new at headquarters?"

"Nothing yet," said Sonja. She spent a few seconds telling him about Jon's idea of determining the resources necessary to make the "terror virus" and attempting to track them. Alex nodded. "It's worth a shot. Did Gaiman call?"

"We haven't heard from him."

"What about that police officer, the one who was there when the driver of the van was killed?"

"The scene has been cleared of biological contaminants," said Hanson, "so I assume he's on his way in."

"Good." Alex looked around. "I don't think there's much more we can do here, so let's head back and—"

"Agent Bowman!" Alex turned to see the officer in charge, the woman who had pulled him out of the warehouse before. She was approaching the CTU agents, holding out a small piece of white plastic. "We found this in the debris. Is it from your partner?"

He took it and examined it. It appeared to be half of a magnetic keycard – the other half was melted away. He turned it over in his hands. The words THIS SIDE UP were printed in small letters, and under them were part of a corporate logo. He squinted at it, trying to make it out, then showed the keycard to the other two. "Looks like the Northern House logo," said Hanson.

"A hotel room keycard?" Sonja looked from one man to the other.

"Must be, or an access card for the staff parts of the hotel. We'll check it out." Alex turned back to the MPD officer. "No, I don't think Agent Chaplain had this. Could it have been in the bomb itself?"

"Actually, sir, he _did_ have it. It was lying right next to his hand."

Alex nodded. "He must have pulled it out of the auxiliary compartment. Okay, officer, we'll take care of this."

He hesitated, then extended his hand to her. "Thank you. For everything."

"That's my job," she replied, shaking it. "You take care of yourself, Agent Bowman."

1:14:53

Lorraine McDevitt was fifty-three years old, and didn't look a day over forty. She was tall and angular, with silver hair and piercing gray eyes. Married and divorced twice, she was the "wise learned one" of CTU Minneapolis – more so than Frost, to many people. And, like Alex, she was not a night person.

As she entered the CTU control room and saw the beehive of activity that it had become, however, the fatigue poisons in her body vanished without a second thought. A couple dozen agents were typing at their terminals, moving files from one end of the room to another, discussing their finds with one another, and generally acting exactly as they had been trained to act: like everyone's lives depended on their own actions.

She sighed. It was going to be a long day.

Across the room, Frost looked up, spotted her, and beckoned her over. She dropped her purse on a nearby empty chair – CTU was one of the few places in Minneapolis where you could leave your purse somewhere and expect it to still be there several hours later – and walked over to join them. "How's business?"

"Breathtaking," Frost said. "Are you up to speed?"

"I got the quick and dirty version when Sonja called. What am I doing?"

"An intact test tube from the first murder site arrived here a few minutes ago, and is waiting in your forensic lab. We need you to analyze the contents for biological activity."

"Killer bug, in other words."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. But did you say the _first_ murder site?" She raised her eyebrows. "Has there been another one?"

Frost looked between her and Jon, who was studying his terminal screen unhelpfully. "We'll tell you about it a bit later. I need you to focus on this at the moment."

Lorraine bent closer to Frost and lowered her voice. "You realize, don't you, that if there _is_ something in that test tube, and you had it brought in here—"

"The first thing they did was double-seal it. You have your hot box, and unless you do something stupid there's no danger to CTU. How long will you need?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Depends on how active the stuff might be. Anywhere from ten minutes to a few hours."

"We'll be waiting." His face softened slightly, and he managed a sincere smile. "Thanks for coming in, Lo. I'm glad to have you with us on this one."

"Thank Alex – it was his idea to wake me up." She turned and headed toward her laboratory before Frost could respond.

"I think we've got all the bases covered, sir," said Jon, glancing up from his terminal. "We have a full roster now, and we'll be ready for whatever they throw at us next. And hey—" he grinned "—it's been just over an hour since the call went out. If this were a drill, we would've passed with flying colors."

"If this were a drill. Right." Frost sat on the edge of Jon's desk, clicked his teeth for a moment, then looked at his watch. "Where the hell is Sonja?"

1:17:22

Sonja drove the car as Alex scratched at the soot covering the burned end of the keycard. She glanced at him sideways. "Wouldn't do any good," she said. "Hotel room keycards don't have room numbers printed on them."

Alex shrugged. "Something to do."

Hanson, from the back seat, piped up: "Boss, you're never happy unless your fingers are doing something."

"My fingers will tear you a new one if you don't shut up back there." He laughed as he said it – Hanson laughed with him. Alex only used his tough-guy attitude when he was joking. Sonja could tell, however, that the humor was forced. She gave him a longer glance, and saw that his hands were trembling as he tinkered with the keycard.

On the dashboard, Sonja's cell phone rang. She picked it up and answered. "Gilmour . . . Yeah, he's right here." She handed the phone to Alex. "It's Frost."

He took the phone. "Art."

"Alex! Are you okay? What happened?"

He gave Frost the short version of events.

"Chaplain?"

Alex closed his eyes for a brief moment. "He didn't make it, Art. I'm sorry. I should've—"

"Should have, would have, could have, none of it matters right now. We have to put it behind us for now, and grieve when we can." Pause. "He was a good man, and I know it wasn't your fault. Leave it at that for now."

"Yes, sir. Has that cop come in yet?"

"He just arrived. I've got him waiting for you in the conference room."

"It may take a little while. We're heading to the Northern House over on Fourth." He told Frost about the burned keycard.

"I can have someone interview him if you'd like."

"Fine, but don't let him go until I get there. I want to talk to him myself."

"You got it."

1:21:01

"Seal integrity confirmed," said Lorraine. "Here we go."

She reached into the glove box – a glass compartment with two gloves built into the surface, so that one could manipulate a totally self-contained environment – and gently handled the test tube within. It took her a moment to maneuver the tube into the right position to break the two seals, and then she opened the tube. The air inside the tube, and whatever it might have contained, was now released into the glove box.

She picked up the first of several instruments she had placed inside the glove box with the test tube – an all purpose sensor rod of her own devising. She stuck the pen-shaped sensor rod halfway inside the tube and depressed a small switch on the size. There was a pause of exactly four seconds, then a beep. She gently withdrew the rod, set it down, then removed one of her hands to type a command into her nearby computer. The screen flashed with information. She studied it.

"No radiation," she said to her assistant. "No detectable toxins. No corrosives. Looks like it's just room air."

"Not quite," said the assistant. "The nitrogen to oxygen ratio is slightly higher than normal."

"That's interesting," she said. "Nitrogen is an inert gas – if you want to preserve something for a long time, you stick it in an airtight container and pump it full of nitrogen."

"What would they have wanted to preserve?"

"I don't know. Possibly nothing – I was just brainstorming out loud." She reached back into the box and gently pulled the covers off of six Petri dishes lying in wait within. "If there is an Ebola-like virus in the glove box, we should expect positive results in dishes four and six within the next hour. These samples can detect just about any other biological activity we can think of – and some we can't."

"I'll set the scopes," said the assistant, and began positioning the suspended monitoring devices to watch each one of the Petri dishes. When there was a positive result in any of them, Lorraine's computer would notify her at once.

"Good," said Lorraine. "Now let's see what else this baby can tell us." She picked up another instrument and began the first of many tests on the tube itself.

1:25:35

The assistant manager of the Northern House, Downtown Minneapolis looked up as the trio of government agents walked into the lobby – he could tell that they were government at once from the way they carried themselves. Their postures were upright, their faces were purposeful, and they generally walked like they owned the place.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

The leader, a tall man with short brown hair, flashed his identification. "Alex Bowman, CTU. Is the manager available?"

"The manager is on vacation overseas at the moment," the assistant manager – his name card identified him as SEAN MORALES – said. "If I could be of any service—"

Alex held out the burned keycard. "This was pulled out of an explosion less than half an hour ago. Is there any way to tell which room it leads into?"

"Goodness!" Morales took the mangled card from Bowman. "I'm not sure if . . . well yes, it is a Northern House card, but are you sure it came from this hotel? So far as I know, all keycards are accounted for."

"It was the best place to start looking."

"I suppose." He peered at it more closely. "If we could extract the information on the magnetic strip, we might be able to tell which room it is, if enough of the data has been preserved."

"Can you do it, please?"

"No. We don't have the equipment to read the data off the card, only to program it. I don't know of any equipment that could extract the information from just a fragment of a card anyway."

Alex nodded, and made a mental note to have Jon or Rick try something with it later. "Mr. Morales, could we take a look at your hotel registry for this evening?"

Morales hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I don't think the manager would appreciate my showing you the registry without a warrant."

"With the evidence we currently have, we could get a warrant quite easily. Trouble is, it takes time – and we may not have the luxury of time."

"To put it another way," said Sonja, "we're going to end up looking at your registry anyway. You can only influence how much extra time the bad guys have before we do."

The assistant manager gulped and nodded. "Do you want a printout? That would take a few minutes."

"Fine – in the meantime, may we use the terminal?"

Morales acquiesced, and the trio of agents moved behind the counter. Sonja stepped up to the terminal and typed commands as Morales flipped on another terminal to initiate the registry printout. By the time the printer had started chattering away, Sonja had already pulled up a scrollable index of the names of the hotel guests. She found what she was looking for on the first page: "Al-Rahmad, Hassan. That's the driver of the white van. Room 307."

"Pull up the full entry, and copy down the information. Mr. Morales, we need to take a look at room 307."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I _will_ need a warrant for that."

"According to Minnesota state law," said Hanson, "managers of hotels are allowed to permit themselves or anyone else access to a room rented out to a guest, with or without that guest's consent or knowledge. As the manager of this hotel is out of the country at the moment, you are the acting manager. This gives you the authority to—"

"Ben, Ben," interrupted Alex. "Mr. Morales is doing what any sensible mid-level employee would in unusual circumstances like these: trying to cover his own ass. It's a very sensible move."

"Yes, boss," said Hanson.

"Of course," continued Alex, "his ass would be more greatly covered if he fully cooperated with us. That way, if we failed to catch the bad guys in time, the federal government would have no reason to take action against the Northern House, action which would certainly result in fines and imprisonment for members of—"

"Okay, okay," said Morales, who liked to think himself a graceful loser. "Room 307, was it?"

1:29:41

". . . once again on the bottom of the hour. I'm Bob Elder for WSMN Radio news. In breaking news, we have had reports of two violent incidents in downtown Minneapolis within the last two hours. About thirty minutes ago a large explosion took place in the warehouse district, apparently in an abandoned building. We have no details yet on what caused the explosion, nor on whether there were any casualties. This follows on the heels of an apparent murder on Lyndale Avenue that took place shortly after midnight. We will, of course, keep you up-to-date on developments in these bizarre incidents.

"A major storm system has made its way through North Dakota over the evening, and is starting to head into Minnesota. There's a strong chance that the Twin Cities will catch a piece of this fast-moving storm, which could hit the area as early as the morning rush hour. Stay tuned to WSMN for further updates on this weather system . . ."

1:31:13

Alex swung the door to room 307 open slowly, cautiously. He expected darkness, but one of the bedside lights was turned on, providing sufficient illumination. The room appeared empty; the bed was freshly made, the little packages of soap were still in their wrappers, there was no luggage lying about. It did not look very used.

Sonja sniffed the air inside the room. "Smell that? It's a men's cologne . . . same kind my boyfriend uses, or very close."

"Nothing personal," said Hanson, "but your boyfriend doesn't have the best taste in cologne."

She made a face. "Tell me about it."

"Sonja, check the drawers and under the beds. Ben, the bathroom." He paced around the room slowly as the other two went about their searches. Morales stood politely just inside the doorway, trying to look more professional than nervous.

"The toilet hasn't even been flushed since this afternoon," Hanson piped up from inside the bathroom. "There's still cleaner in it."

Alex ran his finger over the room's single bed. There were creases and dents in the comforter. "Somebody sat, or lay, on this bed after it was made. Somebody obviously turned on the light." He turned to Morales. "You say that al-Rahmad has had this room since Saturday evening?"

"Yes, sir."

"He must have used it as little more than a base of operations," said Sonja as she peered into the bedside drawer. "A place to coordinate efforts, receive calls, maybe catch a nap when he needed to." She looked up. "Calls."

"Right. Mr. Morales, we need a list of all the calls made by al-Rahmad."

Morales nodded. "I'll get that for you now." He left the room.

"Bingo." Alex and Hanson, just emerging from the bathroom, looked at Sonja, who had pulled a pair of tweezers from her pocket and was extracting a piece of notepad paper from the small garbage can under the bedside drawer. Alex leaned in closer. On the paper was a list of numbers:

840

1631

1226

407

4149

32

2346

Beside each number was a check mark. "Mean anything to you?" asked Sonja.

Alex shook his head. "Passcodes? Phone numbers? No, couldn't be . . . addresses, maybe, but where are the street names? Ben?"

Hanson shook his head as he pulled a plastic bag out of a pack he had slung about his shoulder. "Beats me, boss." He held the bag open for Sonja to drop the note into. "If I were forced to guess, I'd say a cipher of some kind . . . but it's too short to have much content."

"Not a cipher," Sonja said, "but a straightforward code. One in which strings of a few characters can represent entire phrases or sentences – the Navy uses that principle in submarines, whose operational depths prevent transmitting or receiving more than a few dozen characters per minute. Without the code book, we'd never crack the message."

"We'll take it anyway," Alex decided. "Who knows what it is." He took the bagged piece of paper from Hanson and turned back to the door just in time to see Morales re-enter the room. "You got those phone records fast."

"There was nothing to get," Morales said. "The guest in this room did not make or receive a single phone call."

1:34:45

Jon realized he needed a break when he read the same sentence a half dozen times without any cognition. He rubbed his eyes, leaned back, stretched, and saw Frost emerge from his office. Frost moved very slowly to a nearby ceiling support and leaned against it, his hand pressed against his mouth as if he were trying not to vomit. His eyes were those of a man who had borne much, much more than his fair share of the burden.

To hell with protocol, Jon decided, stood, and walked over to meet him. Frost looked up at Jon's approached, but otherwise did not move. "You okay, sir?" Jon asked quietly.

Frost straightened up, and did a respectable job at regaining his composure. "I'm okay. I mean . . . I'll _be_ okay." He paused. "I just got off with Sondra."

Jon nodded, and his stomach sank once more. He knew that he couldn't possibly imagine what it was like to be in Sondra Chaplain's position – attending a party with your devoted husband one moment, discovering that you've become a widow the next. At twenty-six years old, Jonathon Stolt liked to think he had a good imagination, and a good sense of empathy. His grandmother had always taught him to never judge a person until you've imagined walking a mile in her shoes. But now, he tried to imagine was Sondra was going through this very moment, and he couldn't.

"I'm sorry, sir," was all he could think to say – it came out as a hoarse whisper.

Frost faked a smile. "It's okay. It was my responsibility, and she would want to hear it from me anyway." He ran a hand through his graying hair. "What's the latest?"

"Forensics called a few minutes ago. They pulled the prints and dental records from al-Rahmad, and they're running through the computer now, trying to find his real identity. Everyone else is still plodding away."

"Lorraine?"

"Nothing yet."

"What about that cop, Garfield?"

"He's in conference room 2, being debriefed by Shirley. You said to keep him here until Alex gets back."

"Yeah."

1:36:58

Rick was about five miles out of Fergus Falls when his phone rang again. He answered it. "Jacqui?"

"Yeah, Rick, it's me. I got the information you needed, and I'm mostly done cross-checking it."

"Anything so far?"

"Nothing," came Jacqui's voice. "No bio-terrorism connections to Minneapolis or Minnesota at all. Closest match I found was a domestic nut, who ran out of Chicago a couple years ago. He thought that giving a bunch of abortion doctors the West Nile virus would be a really neat idea."

"Great. I don't think we're dealing with – _Shit!"_

He slammed on the brakes and swerved hard to the left. The road contained patches of ice, but there was enough traction that he was able to stop in time – the Nissan spun around 90 degrees and came to a stop perpendicular to the road, with a good seven feet to spare. 

Rick spent a moment trying to catch his breath and thanking the gods that his father had taught him to emergency stop before he had even obtained his driving permit. Then he swiveled his head around to glare at the deer in the right hand lane, who stared back at him as if wondering what all the fuss was about.

"Rick?" inquired a tinny voice from the passenger side floor. "What's wrong? Are you all right?"

Moving slowly and deliberately, keeping his eyes on the offending woodland creature, Rich shifted into park, leaned down and retrieved his cell phone. "Fine," he said. "Sorry. There was a deer in the road – came right out of nowhere."

"You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'm fine," he said as the deer – amazingly enough, totally unaffected by the whole proceedings – sauntered its way off the road and back into the forest. "Just gave me a scare, that's all." He put the car back into gear, slowly maneuvered it back into his lane, and took off once more. "What were you saying, now? West Nile virus?"

"Yeah, the guy in Chicago. That's the closest bio-terrorism connection I could find to Minneapolis. I'll have the whole list cross-checked in another five or ten minutes."

"Fine."

"You want to tell me what this is all about now?"

"Like I said earlier, something came up in the Minneapolis branch, and I wanted to be prepared for when I got there."

"Why did they call you in?"

A wry grin crept across Rick's face. "Alex. The son of a bitch never let up on me. He's been keeping tabs on me ever since I left CTU, making sure I stay out of trouble."

"So why didn't you call CTU to get this information?"

"Because I'm no longer cleared to receive it from them."

"Ah." A brief, awkward pause. "Well, I think maybe this guy is doing the right thing, keeping tabs on you after what happened—"

"Don't go there," Rick said. "Please. Not tonight of all nights."

"Just promise me you're okay."

"I'm okay. I promise. Just call me if you get anything else, okay?"

"I will."

"Thanks, Jacqui." He hung up the phone, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and drove into Fergus Falls.

1:39:40

Omar ibn-Hammad pulled into the driveway of the two-story house in Monticello and parked the car. Monticello, Minnesota was the best of both worlds – small enough and remote enough for that rural feel, close enough to the big city to avoid rural insanity. A good forty minutes north of Minneapolis on I-94, it was much like Breckenridge in that it was asleep at this hour. The freeway gas station, half a mile away, was the nearest sign of life – all was quiet, all was peaceful.

Omar climbed out of the car, walked up the front walk and entered the house as though he owned the place. The lights were on inside, but nobody appeared to be home. Omar stomped his boots free of snow, shed his winter coat onto a nearby easy chair, and walked to the basement door. His hand had not even grazed the doorknob when he felt the barrel of a gun being pressed into the back of his skull.

_"Your mother eats rotten potatoes for lunch,"_ came a voice behind him in Arabic.

_"At least I knew my mother," _Omar replied in the same language, completing the password. He turned to face a grinning young man, who re-holstered his pistol. "Good reflexes, Abdul, but you must remember to keep it in English."

"Yes, I have forgotten. My apologizes, sir."

"Do not forget next time. Is all in readiness?"

"Very nearly, sir," Abdul said as he accompanied Omar down the stairs into the basement. "We did not anticipate the schedule being accelerated like this, but we're doing what we can. Perhaps another half-hour."

"Fine." Omar stopped at the foot of the stairs and glanced around. A couple dozen people had been cramped into the small basement for the last several hours, filling the air with the scent of human beings – some unwashed – in close proximity. They all wore black, and most had ski masks pulled up over their foreheads. They were engaged in various chores – assembling and loading weapons, programming laptop computers, conversing about their plans, and so on. Upon seeing Omar descend into the basement, they rose and stood in respectful attention. Omar appraised them, looking from one face to another in turn.

"I dislike speeches," he said, "so you will not receive one from me. As you already know, circumstances have forced us to accelerate our schedule, so if you have not already begun final preparations, begin them now. We leave in—" he glanced at his wristwatch "—forty minutes. Any questions?"

The room was silent. There were none.

"Good luck," he said. "And long live the Brotherhood."

The men nodded and chattered excitedly as they went back to work. _Not the most disciplined bunch,_ Omar thought silently, _but they know how to follow orders. So long as they continue to believe they are doing Allah's will, they will continue to do so. That is all that matters._

Omar made his way through the mass humanity to the far corner of a basement, partitioned off by curtains tacked to the ceiling. He slipped between two partitions, where he found a small, raven-haired woman, clad in a semi-transparent blouse and long jeans, sitting at a trio of computers. The computers were networked through a small satellite dish in the backyard, disguised as a commercial satellite TV receiver. The signal, like all of their cell phone signals, was scrambled so as be untraceable.

"You're still here?" Omar asked in surprise. "You were sitting here when I left."

"The computers have to be manned constantly from this point on," she said. 

"We won't have the signal for another two hours."

She looked up, noticed Omar's eyes quickly divert their gaze from her breasts, and restrained a knowing grin. "You're paying me to be prepared," she said.

"And prepared you are," Omar said in approval. "Anything you need?"

She shook her head slowly.

"Then it seems we're ready to begin."

"It's a bit early," she said. Her voice was casual, but her eyes conveyed a mixture of questioning and reproof.

"Really," he said with a mischievous grin. "All this equipment, and you didn't have the foresight to pull up a weather report? A large snowstorm is coming in from the northwest, and will hit Minneapolis before sunrise. If we wait to make the call, the storm will be nearly upon us. In a way, their finding the warehouse bomb early was a blessing."

He took his cell phone out of his pocket, turned it on, and glanced at the woman. She checked something on one of her screens, and nodded. He dialed a number.

The line was answered on the first ring. "CTU Minneapolis," came the voice of the switchboard operator.

"2346 Victor Avenue," said Omar without preamble. "Serial number JS-0049163. You will take my second call in exactly seven minutes."

He hung up.

1:44:16

Sonja pulled into the parking spot in the CTU lot and turned off the car. "So where does that leave us?"

Alex had been lost in thought during the entire drive back to CTU. He remained silent for a few more seconds, then opened his door to climb out of the car. Sonja and Hanson followed suit.

"Let's look at what we know," said Alex. "Al-Rahmad picked up the cargo container in Duluth this afternoon and drove it into Minneapolis. Later he was killed by two assassins, who then drove their car to the warehouse where al-Rahamad dropped off the cargo container. Al-Rahmad's hotel room key was in the bomb, meaning that either he put it in there, or he gave it to someone else who then put it in there."

"You think al-Rahamad and the assassins were working together?" Hanson asked as they entered the building and made their way quickly through security.

"I don't know. What we do know is that, first, the assassins knew where the cargo container was, and probably what its significance was, and second, that they eventually wanted us to find it. Even if that cop hadn't gotten the license plate number, we would have found the car eventually. It was parked in a no-parking zone."

"Then why did they kill al-Rahmad?"

"I don't know, Ben – we don't have enough information to really know anything yet."

They walked into the main control room together, just as Arthur Frost was leaving his office. He spotted Alex at once and waved him over. Alex glanced back. "Ben, thanks for your help. I really appreciate it."

"Anytime, boss." Hanson and Sonja both removed their coats and headed back to their desks. Sonja turned back once, as if to say something to Alex, but he was already moving in Frost's direction.

"We got a call from our bomber," Frost said. "He's calling us back in six minutes."

"How do we know it was the bomber?" Alex asked, instantly alert.

"He gave the location and serial number of the warehouse bomb. They have the recording at the switchboard."

"I want to hear it." 

He turned and led Frost out to a small room behind the main entrance corridor, where a telephone operator was sitting at a console. She looked up, clearly expecting them. "Play back the message," Frost ordered.

She typed a command into her computer. All recording of telephone communications at CTU was digital, performed by a Picosystem recording program – no tapes to rewind or fast-forward, no wearing out of magnetic tapes. A bit of fiddling with her computer, and the receptionist's voice came out of the speakers: _"CTU __Minneapolis__."_

It was followed by a coarse, sandpaper-like voice: _"__2346 Victor Avenue__. Serial number JS-0049163. You will take my second call in exactly seven minutes."_ Then there was the sound of the line being broken, and nothing more.

"Call initiated at 1:44:02," the operator read off her screen, "and terminated at 1:44:16. No time to attempt a trace."

Frost turned to Alex. "Voice sound familiar at all?"

Alex shook his head. "We'll get Jon to do a voice-print analysis; maybe this guy's in our database. Art, is that cop here?"

"Yeah, he's waiting for you. But you have less than five minutes – I want you to sit in when he calls back."

"Fine." He turned to leave, then stopped, turned back to Frost. "Art . . . I'm so sorry about Reggie. He was—"

"He was doing his job," Frost said softly. "And he did it damned well."

"Yes, sir." Alex paused a moment longer, tried to think of something else to say, and came up empty. He turned and walked back through the control room. "Jon," he said as he passed Stolt's desk, "load up your voice-print analysis software. You'll need it in a bit." He walked away without observing Jon's reaction, toward the conference room. He opened the door, closed it behind him, and extended his hand to the policeman. "Officer Garfield," he said, "thank you for coming."

Ted Garfield stood and shook Alex's hand. "I was beginning to think you guys had forgotten about me."

Alex managed a smile as he sat opposite Ted. "We've been given a lot to think about during the last couple of hours. I'm obviously a bit rushed at the moment – I know you've already been debriefed, but I just need to ask you a few quick questions."

"Shoot."

"Okay. The two assassins, did you get a good look at their faces?"

"Yeah, and I'm going to be doing the sketch artist thing down at the precinct in the morning. I can do it now, if you'd like—"

"That's not necessary, sir. There was one male, one female, right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did the man speak at all?"

"Boy, did he ever." Ted shuddered slightly at the memory.

"You remember what his voice sounded like?"

"Yes."

"Was it a rough voice, kind of coarse, low-pitched?"

Ted considered for a few seconds. "No," he said, "it was high-pitched, and very smooth – maybe a bit nasal."

_"Not like this?"_ Alex asked in a fair imitation of the sandpaper-voiced caller.

Ted shook his head. "No, sir, not a bit like that."

"Okay. Did the victim and the killers exchange anything? One party give anything to the other, that you saw?"

"Aside from a lead sandwich, nothing."

"Did the victim look like he knew the killers? Was there recognition on his face?"

Ted considered once more. "No, I don't think he recognized them at all."

"What about the killers? Did they recognize the victim?"

"I'm not sure . . . they were too busy either laughing or running to really look at any one thing."

Alex nodded. "One last question, Officer. Are you sure that Mr. al-Rahmad was the target?"

Ted frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, is it possible that the woman who shot Mr. al-Rahmad was really attempting to shoot you, and instead shot the victim?"

"You mean, by mistake?" Ted shook his head. "No way, man. It was a perfect aim, right through the heart."

"Right. I think that's all I have for you right now, Officer." He stood. "We'll be letting you go pretty soon, hopefully."

"Not a problem," Ted said to Alex's back – he was already walking out of the conference room and into Frost's office next door.

Frost looked up at Alex's entry. "Get anything useful out of him?"

"Maybe." Alex paced around the office. "Al-Rahmad was obviously not expecting to be shot to death on Lyndale Avenue, and I think we can assume that he didn't know the two killers. They knew him – he was definitely their target."

"And the bomb?"

"Must have been set up by al-Rahamad, and he must have put the hotel room card key in there himself. Or somebody he knew. Not the killers."

"But the killers knew where the container was, and probably knew that it was a bomb."

"That's what I was working out on the way back here. They were setting us up to find that bomb." He sat down opposite Frost and rubbed his chin. "Something doesn't add up, Art."

"You're telling me. The killers were keeping tabs on al-Rahmad, yes?"

"They must have been. Either they were trying to stop him for some reason, or . . ."

"Or they were working for the same people," said Frost. "First rule of assassination."

Alex nodded. "Kill the assassins. They had al-Rahmad plant the bomb for us to find, and then shut him up for good."

"What about the virus?"

"Did you get Lorraine working on it?"

"Yes, she's still working. So far as we can tell, though, this has nothing to do with a biological-release weapon."

"Nor is it just a case of one bomb in one warehouse. It _can't_ be, Art. It has to be a prelude to something bigger – I think the man who called earlier proved that."

The phone on Frost's desk rang.

"Speak of the devil," said Frost wryly.

1:51:20

Omar covered the mouthpiece of his cell phone with one hand as he stuck his head out the curtains. "Everyone!" he shouted. "I need it quiet for a moment!"

The basement was instantly quiet.

Omar moved back into the curtained-off area just as the line was picked up. "CTU, Director Frost speaking," came the voice of a middle-aged man.

"You are recording this call?" Omar asked.

"This call is being monitored and recorded, yes," said Frost. "With whom am I speaking?"

"Irrelevant. Listen carefully. You have found the bomb on Victor Avenue, yes?"

"We did. One of our agents and a policeman were killed in the explosion."

"That bomb is, as you Americans are fond of saying, like a wet firecracker next to what is waiting for you. Six additional bombs in the city of Minneapolis, between thirty and sixty times as powerful as the one in the warehouse. All of them set to go off at exactly noon today, in ten hours and eight minutes."

"Where are these bombs located?"

"Another of your expressions: That would be telling. But you meet our demands, and you won't have to worry about the bombs."

There was a brief pause.

"It is the policy of the United States Government," said Frost, "that we do not, under any circumstances, negotiate with terrorists."

"That is perfect," said Omar, "since our demands are non-negotiable. Seven point five million dollars, in unmarked, non-sequential bills. Five million in fifties, the rest in twenties. In return, you will receive the locations of the bombs, and instructions for disarming them. Do you understand?"

"I understand what you're saying," said Frost, "but I repeat that we do not—"

"Mr. Frost," said Omar, "the instructions for disarmament are somewhat complicated, so the less time you spend chattering about government policy, the more time you will have for a – what is the phrase? – safety margin. I will call you again in exactly three hours with the drop instructions."

He hung up without further words. The small, raven-haired girl smiled up at him. "The scrambler remained intact," she said sweetly. "No possibility of a trace."

"Thank you," he said, and went out to rejoin his troops.

1:53:25

"Victor Avenue . . ." said Alex, thinking. "What was the address again? 2346 Victor Avenue?" Frost nodded. Alex reached for Frost's phone, dialed an extension number.

"Gilmour," came Sonja's voice over the phone.

"Do you have that list of numbers we got from the hotel room?"

"Yeah, boss, got it right here."

"Is 2346 one of the numbers?"

A second of silence, then, "Yes. Last one on the list."

"The numbers are address numbers. 2346 is 2346 Victor Avenue. I need someone down there to draw up a list of all the addresses in Minneapolis that correspond with the other six numbers."

"Right away."

"Thanks." Alex hung up the receiver and turned back to Frost. "Two possibilities. Either al-Rahmad was careless in leaving that list for us to find, or . . ."

"Or he meant for us to find it," Frost finished. "I think that must be it. What other reason could he have had for leaving his hotel room key in the bomb? He wanted to leave a trail leading to that list."

"Which means either the bombs are there, or we'll be walking into traps." Alex shook his head. "Even with the numbers to help us, there are still hundreds of places in Minneapolis to search. Art, I think this is a wild goose chase."

Frost nodded. "We still have to treat the threat as real. He said thirty to sixty times as powerful as the bomb in the warehouse – that means the least powerful of such a bomb could level half a city block. We can't afford to ignore it."

"Should I call a senior staff conference?"

"Ten minutes. Meantime, I'll talk to Division again." He picked up the phone as Alex stood and walked out of the office, moving quickly.

1:56:01

The Frenchman stood up and spent a long moment looking over his handiwork. Most of the device was now assembled – it was a long, gray canister that, when closed, would look – and act – much like a large helium tank, with the air nozzle sticking out of the top capable of expelling air from inside at tremendous pressure. At the bottom of the canister was a small electronic time-release mechanism that would activate the device after a designated interval. It was built such that, once activated, any attempt whatsoever to deactivate it would trigger the release mechanism.

Now came the tricky part.

The Frenchman opened the front door and trudged back outside to the minivan. He opened the back door and retrieved – _very_ carefully – an object wrapped in a towel. It was heavy, and the Frenchman, strong as he was, grunted under its weight as he carried it into the house and set it down gently next to the device.

He unwrapped the towel, revealing an air tank, built to the exact specifications of the device. It was pressurized to 2,000 atmospheres – the tank itself represented the cutting-edge in materials engineering technology, as it had to in order to contain that much pressure. When installed, it would fit neatly between the interior nozzle and the time-release mechanism.

It was the last part of the device to be installed. He went about the work slowly and deliberately, not bothering to wear an air mask or take any other precaution. If he screwed up at this point, he was a dead man anyway.

1:58:37

Rick was ten miles beyond Fergus Falls when the tire went flat. He swore loudly and pulled the Nissan over to the shoulder of I-94. Leaving the ignition turned on, he climbed out of the car and took a look. The front driver's side wheel had gone flat, all right – probably a piece of glass in the road or something.

"Well if this doesn't just beat all," Rick muttered. He didn't have a spare, and there were almost no service stations open at two in the morning – certainly none near Fergus Falls. If he stuck with the Nissan, there was no way he would reach Minneapolis before early afternoon.

Rick considered a moment, then sighed heavily, pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket, and dialed Jacqui's number.

Inside the car, only faintly heard by Rick standing outside the car, the radio was still tuned to the Fargo AM station.

"It's coming up on the top of the hour," said the announcer. "National news in just a moment, but first more on the weather that has now moved into the Red River Valley region . . . and folks, 'blizzard conditions' doesn't do this one justice. The National Weather Service has extended the severe winter weather warning until 4:00 AM, due to the increasing size of this snowstorm. 

"We have already had an inch and a half of snowfall in the last half hour, and are expecting another six to eight inches tonight. Winds are gusting around – whew! – seventy miles per hour, causing windchills of minus twenty and below. You folks down in Fergus Falls and Alexandria, it's headed your way pretty quickly. We're also getting reports of power outages in West Fargo and Moorhead, and have even gotten a few brownouts right here at the station. 

"So once again: stay inside, stay warm, and do not go out unless it's an absolute emergency. We'll continue to keep you updated throughout the—"

There was a loud burst of static, and the radio was silent.

2:00:00


End file.
